Friday, June 27, 2014

In sexual assault, as in negative consequences of any hierarchy, the top of the hierarchy (men) don't take seriously their attitudes and behaviors that harm a lower group (women).

KLEPPER: You're telling me that women just spend their whole day just navigating an obstacle course of sexual menace? WILLIAMS: Pretty much. KLEPPER: Seriously?WILLIAMS: Seriously. KLEPPER: Ha! Sorry. But not all men are bad! Some are still gentlemen, thank you very much.WILLIAMS:
Thanks. I'll keep that in mind the next time a guy says he wants to
lick my back when I'm walking to work at eight in the fucking morning.

Tennis legend Billie Jean King is 70. She won 39 Grand Slam titles in tennis, and won the famous "Battle of the Sexes" against Bobby Riggs in 1973 (Harriet saw that game at the USMA at West Point while attending a Tennessee/Army football weekend with a cadet high school friend). Ms. King was outed in 1981 by a former lover, lost all her money overnight to lawyers, and had all of her endorsements yanked.

Jason Collins, 36, outed himself last year on the cover of Sports Illustrated, and became the first male athlete in a major American team sport to publicly
announce he was gay while playing. He is a 7-foot-tall, 13-season veteran of the NBA. He was greeted by a supportive public, friends, and family.

In a fascinating interview, the New York Times talks to them both in a Manhattan restaurant about how things have changed in 32 years.

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Rev. Frank Schaefer, a United Methodist pastor who was defrocked after performing the wedding of his gay son and his partner, has been reinstated after an appeals panel on Tuesday overturned an earlier ruling against him.

Once Rev. Schaefer was removed from the clergy, he became an outspoken activist for gay and lesbian rights.

Before his defrocking in December, Rev. Schaefer had been the pastor of Zion United
Methodist Church of Iona in Lebanon, Pa. He will now resume his pastoral work
in Santa Barbara, Calif., where he will minister to college students from the invitation of Bishop Minerva G. Carcaño.

Many predict that the issues of same-sex marriage and ordination of non-celibate gay and lesbian clergy will further divide the denomination after this ruling.

Monday, June 23, 2014

From the mid-1800s until 1978, the Mormons (also called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or LDS) had a policy which closed the church's lay priesthood to most men of black African descent. This resulted in these members being unable to participate in some temple activities. In 1978, leadership of the Mormon church declared they had received a revelation instructing them to reverse the racial restriction policy.

So now the Mormon Church has excommunicated Kate Kelly, who has formed an organization insisting that women be allowed full access to their Mormon faith. The ruling came down from an all-male panel of judges who say she cannot return unless she abandons her cause.

The Mormon leadership is showing us a wonderful example of how they may state that "man" is made in the image of God, in a hierarchical religion such as theirs, the God they describe is, instead, made in the image of a man on top of a hierarchy.

Probably before we know it, if they start to lose members, or the social pressure gets to strong, the leaders of the Mormon church will have a revelation about ordaining women clergy.

Saturday, June 21, 2014

In celebration of LGBT Pride Month, a first will happen at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. tomorrow. The Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge, the Episcopal chaplain at Boston
University, will be the first
openly transgender priest to preach from Canterbury Pulpit at the
cathedral.

Many Christian denominations are proclaiming that people who are not heterosexual should undergo psychological treatment to become heterosexual, according to the God they speak for, and place themselves at the top of their Christianity hierarchy as the "Only Way." We can, however, remember that other Christian denominations believe that the God they speak for accepts people for who they are.

Friday, June 13, 2014

The Southern Poverty Law Center has published a map according to state, showing the location of hate groups, those who use an innate human characteristic to build a hierarchy. If you go to the pull-down menu, you can see who is in your neighborhood.

The internet has become a great tool for exposing hierarchies, and here is another example. The more we expose the top, the more we know about who is clinging on to the past using hierarchical techniques to stay there.